“Halo Legends” will hit DVD and Blu-ray on February 9. Distributed by Warner Home video and produced by 343 Industries, part of Microsoft Game Studios, the CG and traditional anime will explore the history and origins of the Halo universe and some of its characters. The eight episodes will cover seven storylines, which will also be available via On Demand and Digital Download.

The episodes will fall inside Halo’s 26th Century continuity as humanity battles aliens to protect the ever-expanding space colonies of Earth. Halo fans will recognize some characters and locales from the games. Each episode will be 10 to 17 minutes long, with about two total hours of viewing.

Halo Legends will have the same look and feel as “The Animatrix” and “Batman Gotham Knight,” in that each episode will be self contained. Each episode will be presented as imagined by a the director or animator. Children of the 80s and anime fans, alike, will recognize the work of some of these creative contributors including Shinji Aramaki, who did character designs on “MASK;” Mamoru Oshii, creator and writer of “Jin-Ro;” and Hideki Futamura, a key animator on “Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.”

Extras on the two disc will include a “making of” feature, audio commentary with the directors and a mini-feature detailing the rise of the Halo franchise from an Xbox game to a mammoth property commanding over $1 billion in revenue with games, comics, novels and other merchandise. The Blu-ray will retail for around $35, the two-disc set for around $30 and the DVD for around $20.

They’ll all be released on July 28.

The science fiction epic that not only bridged generations but brought a whole new generation into the genre is over, but season 4.5 on DVD and Blu-ray will have 13 hours of extras including three extended episodes of the series finale that were never aired. There will also be deleted scenes and behind the scenes fun. Finally, there are commentary tracks and podcast-able interviews with executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick.

Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series is a ridiculous 20 disk Blu-ray or 25 disk DVD set with every episode and just about every bonus feature you can think of.

Season 4.5 bonus features on Blu-ray only:

• U-CONTROL: Universal’s exclusive signature feature puts viewers one click away from going deeper into the making of the film without ever leaving the movie.
• THE ORACLE: An interactive guide including ships and characters.
• BATTLESTAR ACTUAL: A glossary of all the unique Battlestar Galactica terms.
• WHAT THE FRAK HAPPENED TO YOU? Explore the history and connections of your favorite characters through video clips and relevant facts.
• BD-LIVE: Access the BD-Live Center through your Internet-connected player to get even more content, watch the latest trailers, and more!
• BATTLESTAR GALACTICA ULTIMATE BATTLE: Players can battle their friends as Colonials or Cylons using strategy and luck to achieve victory.
• MY SCENES: Pick your favorite scenes from the film to create your own video montage.
• THE MUSICIANS BEHIND DAYBREAK: Composer Bear McCreary interviews and explains how many unique musicians have contributed the show and specifically the series finale, Daybreak.

Blu-ray and DVD features:

• EVOLUTION OF A CUE: Composer, Bear McCreary takes us step by step through his process of creating the music of Battlestar Galactica.
• What the Frak is Going On With Battlestar Galactica?: A recap of Battlestar Galactica’s first three thrilling seasons – in only eight minutes!
• …AND THEY HAVE A PLAN: What do they mean every episode when the opening sequence on the Cylons states “And They Have A Plan?” All will be revealed in the upcoming movie The Plan.
• THE JOURNEY ENDS: THE ARRIVAL: Battlestar Galactica has traveled full circle. The journey has concluded never to be revisited. But how did we arrive at the end?
• A LOOK BACK
  • SO SAY WE ALL: Executive Producer Ron Moore and the cast and crew reveal their personal insights on Battlestar Galactica.
  • MANIFESTO DESTINY: It all began with this manifesto. Why was it written and what was the response?
  • BATTLE-STYLE GALACTICA: Those behind the camera delve into their approach to visual style of Battlestar Galactica.
  • MARTYR TO A CAUSE: As the only actor to appear in both the original and reimagined series, Richard Hatch offers his unique perspective on Battlestar Galactica.
  • THE SINS OF THE FORGIVEN: Insights on the curious religious aspects of Battlestar Galactica.
  • BATTLESTAR REVELATIONS: Firsthand accounts from those on the Battlestar for the past five years.
  • AUDIO COMMENTARIES BY RONALD D. MOORE, DAVID EICK, AND EDWARD JAMES OLMOS
• Moore’s Podcast Commentaries
• Eick’s Video Blogs
• DELETED SCENES

The Battlestar Galactica saga began on one devastating day, when the human population of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol was annihilated in a series of surprise attacks by their own creation—the Cylons, a race of sentient robotic clones. The few survivors huddled together on space ships, facing almost certain death at the hands of their ruthless enemies. In Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.5, Commander William Adama (Emmy Award-winner Edward James Olmos), the hawkish military leader of the last surviving battleship, searches for a habitable planet as the murderous Cylons follow relentlessly. As mysterious premonitions help Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) the President of the Twelve Colonies, guide the ship to the fabled Thirteenth Colony, Earth, treacherous double agents, Cylon spies and internal dissent plague the Galactica. The ship’s crew and passengers battle for their lives—and the survival of the human race—armed with only cunning and determination against the military might of the Cylon Empire.

“Tales of the Black Freighter” will also include “Under the Hood,” an autobiography of “Watchmen” character Nite Owl featured heavily in the graphic novel.

Both titles are executive produced by “Watchmen” director Zack Snyder, Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin, Deborah Snyder, Thomas Tull and Wesley Coller.

A comic-within-a-comic from the original “Watchmen” graphic novel, “Tales of the Black Freighter”tells the story of a sailor’s return home after being marooned. It is read in “Watchmen” the graphic novel by a young man in New York City while the city around him is being destroyed. The events in “Black Freighter” seem to mirror those in the world of “Watchmen.”

A “Director’s Cut” version of “Watchmen” is planned to be released incorporating “Tales of the Black Freighter” into the film as director Zack Snyder had originally intended. Due to the length it added to the film, Snyder was forced not to include “Black Freighter” in “Watchmen”s theatrical release.

“Under the Hood” is the autobiography of the original Nite Howl, Hollis Mason. It discusses how Mason’s life led him to become a masked avenger and how the Minutemen, the first superheroes to emerge in the “Watchmen” universe, were formed. It is directed by Eric Matthies, written by Hans Rodionoff and produced by Eric Matthies and Wesley Coller. Stars Carla Gugino, Matt Frewer, Stephen McHattie and Jeffrey Dean Morgan appear as their characters from the theatrical “Watchmen” film in this live-action documentary style special.

“Watchmen: Tales from the Black Freighter and Under the Hood” will be available on standard definition disc for $27.95 and Blu-ray disc for $35.99.

Set for $34.99, the Boondock Saints Blu-ray features deleted scenes and outakes with commentary from cast and crew and a special director’s cut.

We would like to see a “Saints” documentary or featurette — something NEW that you couldn’t find on the DVD and Special Edition DVD of the movie.

Boondock Saints is one of the great cult classics of all time, but moreso if you live in Boston.

Just in case you aren’t familiar:

Irish brothers Connor and Murphy MacManus live and work in South Boston. After killing a Russian mobster in self-defense, the brothers believe they have found their calling from God ridding the earth of human evil. So they set out to complete their divine deed by ridding the streets of gangsters, criminals and lowlifes; and as the body count rises, the brothers become local heroes (deemed the “Boondock Saints”) even as the police are on their trail. By risking their lives for their beliefs of Veritas (truth) and Aequitas (justice), the vigilante brothers take the law into their own hands…until they are pursued by unorthodox FBI agent Paul Smecker who follows their trail of bloodshed, but admits that the boys are doing exactly what he has always secretly wished to happen.

In “National Security,” Martin partners with Steve Zahn as LAPD rejects turned security guards who take down a smuggling ring to prove themselves to their law enforcement betters.

In “Blue Streak,” Martin’s a master jewel thief who made a $20 million heist before getting busted. He stashed his loot, a huge diamond, in some duct work at a construction site just before the heat came down on him. The problem: that construction site was a future police station, which dumbfounds the thief when he gets out of prison.

I’d say “Blur Streak” is the bigger classic among our generation. It came out when many of us were young high schoolers, during a slow movie period, and I bet a lot of us saw it by default.

Both Blu-ray flicks feature 1080p high def visuals and Dolby TrueHD 5.1 sound. “Security” features a Disturbing Tha Peace music video, alternate ending, director commentary, and deleted scenes. “Streak” has a making-of featurette, an HBO first look, and music videos.

Don’t spend more than $20 though.

So we sat down and watched them all.

The flicks included “For Your Eyes Only,” “From Russia with Love,” “Dr. No,” “Live and Let Die,” “Thunderball” and “Die Another Day,” — Pierce Brosnan’s last Bond run.

Our generation grew up with Pierce, and “Die Another Day” his second best of the four he did, but don’t miss “From Russia with Love,” and “Thunderball.” They’re a bit different than we’re used to, but they’re very good, classic 007 titles.

The films have been remastered for Blu-ray, and play in DTS surround sound.

They join “Casino Royale,” which was Daniel Craig’s first Bond role, which came out on Blu-ray last holiday season, and it has been one of the best, and best-selling Blu-ray titles.

There are more special features than movie minutes. They really pack the 50 GB dual-layer discs. There are image galleries, behind the scenes features, documentaries, featurettes on the various Bond actors, making-of features, profiles of the villains, and TV/radio spots

The films can be purchased individually, or on an Amazon.com exclusive six-pack.

Be warned, you’ll probably have to upgrade your firmware if you have an older DVD player. That has been a problem for a lot of late, great Blu-ray releases, and it was a problem when DVD first came out as well. Do your homework, but realize that this is one of those holiday “must haves.”

The direct to DVD and Blu-ray feature is directed by series veteran, Martin Wood. Written by Brad Wright and Johnathan Glassner, developers and creators of the TV series, this movie is sure to please hardcore fans. The budget is clearly much bigger this time around. Everything from the back-from-the-past costumes, the CGI, and even the on-location filming looked far more detailed, expansive, and expensive than even the previous movie.

The movie is not advised to be seen by the unconverted. It is not only rich with time paradoxes and alien technology dialogue, but it’s also deep in Stargate universe mythology and SG-1 history. New people will get lost, and fans of the show will find their trivia knowledge absolutely put to the test. What you thought you knew about Stargate will need to be re-visited or you will have questions.

So far, fan reviews have given it praise. That being said, there are always the fans who will see this and ask ‘what the hell?’ While the movie clocks in at an average length of 1 hour and thirty minutes, it will seem short. Not rushed, but will seem as if more could of been included to show what happened than the explanations that were verbally given. Stargate is known for this sort of scripting, where days pass by and an explanation for an obvious gap in visuals is just spoken of as a cheap way out of actually filming something.

This movie will get confusing, as it is with all time-travel stories, logic will need to take a step outside. In Stargate:Continuum, Ba’al is the last of the Gou’ld to be sentenced to death in the new Tok’ra headquarters. Interesting to note that Tok’ra are nomads, but have finally chosen to settle. The well internet leaked appearance of Jack O’Neill comes early, and doesn’t disappoint as the one true fulcrum of the SG-1. The plot begins to take off when the SG-1 team members begin to disappear one by one.

The featured characters turn out to be Colonel Mitchell, Daniel Jackson, and Major Samantha Carter. They escape the disappearing phenomenon by jumping into the stargate. They find themselves not back home inside the SGC, but instead, inside a frozen boat, far away. What makes this movie worth while, as the remaining SG-1 team figures out away to foil Ba’al’s plans, are the numerous cameos by past Goa’aulds. This movie is truly meant for the Goa’auld lover out there.

One of the returning characters that should be reveled, specifically for Blast readers is the appearance by Don S. Davis, as General Hammond. Davis, who died this summer, gives an all too familiar performance as the well-loved authority figured who’s so partial to SG-1. This time it comes with a twist, but he has optimal screen time to do him final a Stargate farewell. Which is more that I can say for Apophis. Again.

While not wholly loved by the Stargate community, Beau Bridges gives a stellar monologue that finally does justice to what we all thought of about the alternate realities. He really gives voice to the ‘alternate universe’ perspective of why they wouldn’t just allow another SG-1 copies to run the place just so they can get back to their own time and/or space. With this movie we even get some semblance of normalcy and real heart break toward the end.

Fans of the series will need to see this one to finally wrap-up those 10 years of adventure. SG-1 has already proven themselves legends among the stars. And now they the prove how timeless they really have become.

I’ll leave you geeks, nerds, dorks, fans with something from Brad Wright himself: “MGM has suggested we start thinking about that and start putting a story together, and that’s what we’re doing right now. But not just a movie … it seems that MGM is confident SciFi Channel or some television outlet will pick up the previously announced third series “Stargate: Universe” as well.”

“We’ve listened to our customers, who are showing a clear preference toward Blu-ray products and movies with their purchases,” said Gary Severson, senior vice president, Home Entertainment, Wal-Mart, U.S. “With the customers best interest in all we do, we wanted to share our decision and timeline with them as soon as possible, knowing it will help simplify their purchase decision, increase selection, and increase adoption long term.”

“We anticipate enhancing our selection with continued great values in hi-definition Blu-ray products, so our customers can further enhance their entertainment experience at home.”

By June, Wal-Mart and Sam’s stores will only offer Blu-ray hardware and DVD’s. 2008 has not been kind to HD DVD. Toshiba rang in the new year by getting the devastating news that Warner Bros. would produce all of their HD titles on Blu-ray.

The film is a magical journey set in a turbulent time — set right in the middle of the antiwar movement as Jude (Jim Sturgess) leaves Liverpool and his job as a dockworker to find his father in America. He falls in love with a young, rich and sheltered American girl, Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) who joins the Greenwich Village antiwar movement during the Vietnam War.

“Across the Universe” is a musical set to rock music. It’s a moving, entertaining, thought-provoking tale that you’ll watch over and over again with friends, dates and by yourself.

The Blu-ray features extended musical numbers, a deleted scene, commentary with director Julie Taymor and musical producer/composer Elliot Goldenthal as well as five behind-the-scenes shots. There’s also an art gallery on the disc with drawings from the film.

It’s in full 1080p with Dolby TrueHD 5.1.

This rock and roll musical runs over two hours and also stars Joe Anderson, Dana Fuchs, Martin Luther and T.V. Carpio.

Resident Evil: Extinction on Blu-ray is an excellent high-def adaptation for this video game movie. Granted, the movie got poor critical acclaim, but if you are a fan of the franchise, this one looks and sounds awesome.

The Blu-ray features 11 deleted scenes, director/producer commentary, four “making of” featurettes and a preview of Resident Evil: Degeneration, the upcoming CGI-based film.

Exclusive to the Blu-ray release, you can also use “Blu-wizard 2.0″ to create your own playlist of special features. More importantly, the Blu-ray disc features”Under the Umbrella: Picture-in-picture,” which features interviews with cast and crew, storyboards, photos and behind the scenes clips that play within the feature.

Milla is back in this third piece of the Resident Evil pie. The film is packed with zombies, blood and gore, and it also stars Ali Larter, Ashanti and Mike Epps.

Resident Evil: Extinction is now available on DVD and Blu-ray for $28.95 and $38.96. There is also a PSP Universal Media Disc version for $24.94. Finally, you can get all three Resident Evil flics in a Blu-ray trilogy for $89.95.

This will serve as a huge problem for the HD DVD format. Warner Bros sells 18 to 20 percent of all home videos. This now leaves only Universal, The Weinstein Company and Paramount (and their child companies like Dreamworks) supporting the now falling behind HD DVD format.

Paramount switched to HD DVD only when they received a $150 million payoff last summer.

Conversely, the Blu-ray camp now has Sony Pictures, Disney, Fox, Lions Gate and now the Warner exclusivity.

Sony owns MGM and Columbia TriStar. Disney Owns Touchstone, Pixar and Miramax. This gives Blu-ray a much stronger position as far as this generation’s format war is concerned.

Prediction: If Paramount goes back to both formats or somehow decides to make just Blu-ray when their HD DVD contract expires, the war will be over quickly.

Toshiba was quick to respond, and they’re pissed off.

“Toshiba was quite surprised by Warner Bros.’ decision to abandon HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray, despite the fact that there are various contracts in place between our companies concerning
the support of HD DVD,” the company said in a statement Friday. “We will assess the potential impact of this announcement with the other HD DVD partner companies and evaluate potential next steps.”

The next step appears to be a step back. The HD DVD group canceled its CES press conference.

The reason behind Warner’s move — it looks like they’d rather support one than risk both next-gen HD formats failing.

People seem to like downloadable content from places like the iTunes, and Xbox Live has done well so far at selling videos. If the format wars continue, it looks like consumers could skip both Blu-ray, and HD DVD and go straight to downloadable.

“The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger,” Barry Meyer, Warner Brothers chairman, told Yahoo! Tech. “We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers, and most importantly, consumers.”

Consumers just don’t want to buy the same movie — often a movie they may have had on VHS — a second, third or fourth time. Warner says that both formats are having an impact that caused consumers to say, “let’s wait a bit to buy anything, even a standard-definition DVD.”

Well, we can’t have that now, can we?

Sony announced last week that the film is the first high definition disc to ship more than 100,000 copies. It’s also the first to have broken into the top 10 on Amazon.com’s best-seller list.

The movie is a perfect selling point for Sony’s Blu-Ray format, and an appropriate one for the company to use as a launching pad to surpass rival format HD-DVD. The crisp transfer on the Blu-Ray version allows fiery explosions to jump off the screen, and highlights every drop off water dripping off Daniel Craig’s sculpted abs as he emerges from a swim.

The special edition-available in both wide screen and full screen-includes a handful of extras tied to both the film and the franchise. A “Becoming Bond” documentary highlights the transformation of unlikely casting choice Craig into a blonde James Bond. A version of the 2002 AMC production “Bond Girls Are Forever” examines the role of leading ladies in Bond films over the years, and is updated to include Eva Green’s Casino Royale character, Vesper Lynd. Stunts performed in the movie’s numerous action sequences are dissected in a second featurette. And then, of course, is the token pop music video: in this case, for Chris Cornell’s “You Know My Name,” which provides the soundtrack to the opening credits of the film.

However, film buffs may want to hold off on rushing out to purchase the DVD, as in what is becoming the norm for DVD marketing, something along the lines of a “Super Special Deluxe Edition” will likely be released in the coming months, with additional extras and perhaps never-before-seen footage.

Need I say more?

Follow the path of Boog and Elliot as they join forces in the wilderness, in this latest Blu-Ray release.

The disc is packed full of featurettes and bonus material. You can spin the wheel in “Wheel of Fortune Forest Edition.” There’s an original short feature, “Boog & Elliot’s Midnight Bun Run.” We also have the usual deleted scenes and commentary material. And if that’s not enough, there’s an extremely funny feature called “Inside the Animals Studio,” a scene deconstruction special, artwork/beat boards and a music video.

Open Season also stars Gary Sinise and Debra Messing and has been critically acclaimed as the latest funny animated feature that will keep the kids occupied and throw in enough jokes to hold the big kid’s interest too.